Those that imagined that IBM’s interest in the telecommunications business had ended with the sale of most of Satellite Business Systems to MCI Communications Corp will have to think again following the revelation in yesterday’s New York Times that IBM and MCI, together with a group of Michigan universities, had begun discussions with the US Federal Government about the creation of a non-profit company to build a superfast digital network – running at 1Gbps or more – that could eventually reach every home in the US. The Times likens the proposed network to the US interstate highway system, which brought jobs and increased economic activity to every region it spread into. IBM and MCI are already involved with the Michigan universities in the National Science Foundation’s NSFnet, on which traffic is increasing at an astonishing 25% a month, and after three years links 60,000 large and small computers. Dull second quarter for IBM – page 5
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